jwhite96 said:
To Rebaljo ; Don't you feel foolish insulting me when I said the officiating at the WC is rarely without blatant cheating by referees .
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jwhite96 said:
So where is the Aussie Rebaljo? Does he now believe the WC 2010 outcomes when necessary, are decided by the referees which are beholden to FIFA.
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<div>I'm here mate, and I'm feeling far from foolish.</div>
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<div>One question: Do You actually
read my posts? You'd better hone those comprehension skills because it appears that You have missed the entire gist of what I have been saying. Just to make things
perfectly clear for You, I'll even quote myself (groan):
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<div>It was I, Rebajlo, who initially raised the issue of FIFA officials providing an African team with referee-assisted passage to the semi-finals stage in the following thread:</div>
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http://www.castefootball.us/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11069&PN=4&title=2010-world-cup</div>
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<div>Understand? Have You clicked the link to verify this? Well, just to save You the effort, here is a partial quote from that post:</div>
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Rebajlo said:
Here is a point to ponder - given the location of this edition of the tournament, I will not be at all surprised if an African team is given a dodgy refereeing-assisted run to the semi-finals stage, in order to further "promote" African football. In fact, this is exactly what I expect. Why? Permit me to elaborate...
<div>A precedent for blatantly favouring a nation from the non-European hosting continent was set back in 2002 with co-hosts South Korea being the beneficiaries of essentially openly biased decisions throughout the competition. The largely Third-World referees and linesmen gave the Koreans free rein to perpetrate endless cynically brutal fouls and engage in unsportsmanlike spoiling tactics, culminating in the utter farce of their final group game, where Portugal had two players conveniently sent off, and of their second round and quarter finals matches against, respectively, Italy and Spain. This was startlingly flagrant cheating on the world stage - I recall Francesco Totti being sent off in extra time to give the Asians a one-man advantage and Spain having two legitimate goals disallowed...</div></div>
<div>... I'm sure that the match officials shall turn a proverbial blind eye to the characteristic undisguised thuggery of African players...
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<div>I provided a link to a montage of cynical fouls and unsportsmanlike behaviour perpetrated by South Korea in their matches against Italy and Spain in the 2002 tournament. You appear to have failed to notice, but in
this current thread I actually
agreed with You in regard to FIFA being a corrupt organisation:
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Rebajlo said:
I agree with Your view that FIFA is a highly corrupt organisation - in fact, I raised the issue and used South Korea's "easy ride" in 2002 as an example...
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<div>What I
disagreed with were Your claims about "Eurosnobbery"; the skill levels of European (especially English) players compared to the supposedly incredible Americans; anti-American bias exhibited by European clubs; and (most of all) FIFA constantly targetting the United States with refereeing decisions in order to prevent the U.S. from apparently demolishing all opposition in sight and winning tournaments. Claims such as the following:</div>
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jwhite96 said:
The US always suffers from the FIFA gangster picked refs...</div>
<div>...The ref for the England game was carefully chosen...
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<div>So, is the United States in a "group of death" this time? Where was the blatant anti-American bias during the England game? After all, the referee was
carefully chosen, correct? This would have been the perfect opportunity to nobble the United States by dishing out a couple of red cards AND handing England three points on a well-polished platter...</div>
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<div>I have already posted my views on the United States' disallowed goal in the match against Slovenia, but guess what? The referees have made several errors in several matches - sure, that particular instance robbed Your team of three points (and I genuinely commiserate with the American fans), but do You think that it was the result of:</div>
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<div>(a) an inept African referee? or</div>
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<div>(b) an anti-American plot designed to favour the much-fancied all-white Eurosnobs Slovenia? or</div>
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<div>(c) an anti-American plot designed to favour the all-white Slovenia AND to aid England, as everyone knew in advance that the latter would play abysmally against Algeria? or</div>
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<div>(d) an anti-American plot to prevent the United States from inevitably topping the group AND therefore doubling as an openly pro-English blow?</div>
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<div>Sounds ridiculous? Let's apply Your (and my
) template of a probable pro-black FIFA leaning, shall we? Why would the black-loving FIFA instruct a referee to favour the all-white Slovenia over the (let's face it) comparatively substantially black United States? To help England, just in case they stuff up against Algeria? Surely any anti-white angle would put tiny Slavic Slovenia at the bottom of the pile, with the African Algerians and heavily black United States (and, later, England) copping the favours, eh? Maybe FIFA leftists wish to punish the American team for U.S. foreign policy? Slovenia certainly aren't a "big name" side.</div>
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<div>The black African referee committed an egregious African-style error - no anti-American plots involved.
Quod erat demonstrandum.</div>
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<div>I'm not searching for excuses for my country here, but the dodgy decisions against Australia in last night's Ghana matchÂÂÂ
did bear the hallmarks of pro-black African bias.
Now, note well, that I'm not saying that Australia would have surely won the game if Harry Kewell hadn't been sent off. The lads put in a massively gutsy performance under murky circumstances, but our brand of football definitely isn't world class. Nevertheless, once we actually put pressure on the Ghanaians, they began to crack and made error after error. The true turning point of the match was actually the failure of Luke Wilkshire and Brett Emerton to deal with Ayew in the box, allowing the latter to put the ball across the goal and initiate the situation which led to the penalty - and later Wilkshire's failure to score from a couple of yards out. One must also admit that Australia was lucky when that picture of African athleticism, Richard Kingson, spilled Mark Bresciano's free kick to allow Brett Holman to score.</div>
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<div>In terms of pro-black decisions, the controversy of the penalty and sending off aside, the single episode which really stood out was Lee Addy's brutal foul (tackle from behind) on Bresciano just before half time. This was a 100% red card and would have evened things up, but only a yellow was given. I almost did myself an injury bellowing expletives...ÂÂÂ
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Thrashen said:
I always thought Klose's father was pure German and his mother was pure Polish? Are you suggesting something else? I know he was born in Poland, he speaks Polish, and his wife is Polish...
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<div>Sorry, mate, my mistake. I'm actually rather embarrassed as I pride myself on being an impressive repository of accurate football facts (which is, hopefully, evidenced by my posts
). Here's how it happened: just after Klose started playing for Germany I read in either World Soccer magazine or British Soccer Week that Klose's father had added the "e" to the surname. Never having the need to look up Klose's biography on the internet, I had assumed that this was true - now, upon looking things up using both Polish and German webpages, I now see that I had read some duff information (damn them
). The fact is that such a name alteration seemed rather plausible - Silesians (
Slazacy in Polish
; Slunzoki in the Silesian dialect / language
) can be of very mixed backgrounds containing various degrees of Polish and German blood and their identities have "fluctuated" depending on which way the wind was blowing
. In addition, Klos
is a Polish surname - an example is ex-Poland defender Tomasz Klos, who You may have heard of if You have an interest in German football, as he played for Kaiserslautern and a handful of  matches for FC Koln.</div>
